Sometimes rambling but always loving, a sentimental look at a mother's life.
In this debut memoir, a Russian immigrant to America cobbles together family stories and her reflections on child-rearing.
When she was 23, Trepelkov and her husband, Alex, flew from Russia to New York to begin an exciting new life. It was the early 1980s, and Alex would soon become immersed in his job at the United Nations. She was offered a position at the U.N. Library. The daughter of a Soviet diplomat, she had been an outstanding student with much promise in the professional world. But when she discovered she was pregnant, she turned down the U.N. job offer and decided to become a stay-at-home mom. Now a grandmother, the author was inspired to share these tender family tales and parenting ideas after reading Amy Chua’s popular book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, in which Chua claims to have raised her American daughters the way a Chinese mother would. Though Trepelkov doesn’t profess to have raised her daughters the “Russian way,” she can relate to being a mom with a different cultural background in America. Her mothering style is more laid-back than Chua’s. For example, she exposed her girls to arts and sports without demanding they be the best. The most compelling parts of her account vividly describe her struggles to fit in. In the Soviet Union, her family was part of the elite—and socializing with foreigners was discouraged—so in America, organizing a daughter’s birthday party proved difficult. Trepelkov’s prose is smooth, but sometimes the narrative flow is slowed down by mundane memories, like the time an administrator called her father to discuss her placement in seventh-grade language classes. Jumping from thought to thought, the style is diarylike—one anecdote about ice skating is interrupted by a vignette about her daughter’s wish to become a ballerina. But the author also includes many of her Russian family stories, which are memorably sweet. For example, like O. Henry’s short story “The Gift of the Magi,” her grandfather sold his prized silver cigarette case to buy his wife a pair of shoes.
Sometimes rambling but always loving, a sentimental look at a mother's life.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68433-084-3
Page Count: 202
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.
The renowned writer offers advice on information-gathering and nonfiction composition.
The book consists of eight instructive and charming essays about creating narratives, all of them originally composed for the New Yorker, where McPhee (Silk Parachute, 2010, etc.) has been a contributor since the mid-1960s. Reading them consecutively in one volume constitutes a master class in writing, as the author clearly demonstrates why he has taught so successfully part-time for decades at Princeton University. In one of the essays, McPhee focuses on the personalities and skills of editors and publishers for whom he has worked, and his descriptions of those men and women are insightful and delightful. The main personality throughout the collection, though, is McPhee himself. He is frequently self-deprecating, occasionally openly proud of his accomplishments, and never boring. In his magazine articles and the books resulting from them, McPhee rarely injects himself except superficially. Within these essays, he offers a departure by revealing quite a bit about his journalism, his teaching life, and daughters, two of whom write professionally. Throughout the collection, there emerge passages of sly, subtle humor, a quality often absent in McPhee’s lengthy magazine pieces. Since some subjects are so weighty—especially those dealing with geology—the writing can seem dry. There is no dry prose here, however. Almost every sentence sparkles, with wordplay evident throughout. Another bonus is the detailed explanation of how McPhee decided to tackle certain topics and then how he chose to structure the resulting pieces. Readers already familiar with the author’s masterpieces—e.g., Levels of the Game, Encounters with the Archdruid, Looking for a Ship, Uncommon Carriers, Oranges, and Coming into the Country—will feel especially fulfilled by McPhee’s discussions of the specifics from his many books.
A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-374-14274-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
The memoir of George Dawson, who learned to read when he was 98, places his life in the context of the entire 20th century in this inspiring, yet ultimately blighted, biography. Dawson begins his story with an emotional bang: his account of witnessing the lynching of a young African-American man falsely accused of rape. America’s racial caste system and his illiteracy emerge as the two biggest obstacles in Dawson’s life, but a full view of the man overcoming the obstacles remains oddly hidden. Travels to Ohio, Canada, and Mexico reveal little beyond Dawson’s restlessness, since nothing much happens to him during these wanderings. Similarly, the diverse activities he finds himself engaging in—bootlegging in St. Louis, breaking horses, attending cockfights—never really advance the reader’s understanding of the man. He calls himself a “ladies’ man” and hints at a score of exciting stories, but then describes only his decorous marriage. Despite the personal nature of this memoir, Dawson remains a strangely aloof figure, never quite inviting the reader to enter his world. In contrast to Dawson’s diffidence, however, Glaubman’s overbearing presence, as he repeatedly parades himself out to converse with Dawson, stifles any momentum the memoir might develop. Almost every chapter begins with Glaubman presenting Dawson with a newspaper clipping or historical fact and asking him to comment on it, despite the fact that Dawson often does not remember or never knew about the event in question. Exasperated readers may wonder whether Dawson’s life and his accomplishments, his passion for learning despite daunting obstacles, is the tale at hand, or whether the real issue is his recollections of Archduke Ferdinand. Dawson’s achievements are impressive and potentially exalting, but the gee-whiz nature of the tale degrades it to the status of yet another bowl of chicken soup for the soul, with a narrative frame as clunky as an old bone.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50396-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
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